Despite decades of awareness that the corporate world needs to do a better job of opening its upper management to women, female representation still trails off dramatically the higher you get in the corporate pyramid. Of the Fortune 1000 list of companies, just 35 have a woman as CEO, and about 14% of the executive officers at Fortune 500 companies are women.

With all that being said, the trend is moving in the right direction, although slower than many hoped. Europe has made the most progress, with almost 30% of its corporates having three or more women on their board, according to a paper released this month by David F. Larcker and Brian Tayan at the Stanford School of Business:

Stanford Graduate School of Business

So what better way to recognize that progress than by recognizing the women who made it happen before anyone else? In that spirit, this week’s pop quiz: What was the first corporation in America to have a female board member? And who was she?

Larcker and Tayan say they have the answer. When you’re ready to check it out, read on….

Some sources claim that Lettie Pate Whitehead was the first female to serve on the board of a major corporation. Whitehead’s husband founded the first Coca-Cola bottler; she herself managed the bottler following his death and in 1934 was invited to join the board of the Coca-Cola Company as its first female director. However, the first female director in our sample predates Whitehead. Clara Abbott, wife of founder Wallace Abbott, served two terms on the board of Abbott Laboratories from 1900 to 1908 and from 1911 to 1924—although the company was not yet publicly listed at the time.